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The Task: Movie Review

by Jason Lees, MoreHorror.com

The After Dark Series, to me, is like a Christmas stocking. You don’t go peaking inside to find the really stand out presents. You won’t find a new car hiding inside, nothing too life changing, but it’s the thought that counts. After Dark has given us some pretty good gifts recently, like “Husk,” so I can’t be too hard on their most recent present of “The Task.”

“The Task” is another variation on the Ten Little Indians riff this time using a reality game show as its setting. We open with various characters being abducted and taken to a roadside by masked men who really dig shoving them around. Some of the best bits are in this quick setup, and that’s a shame because I have a soft spot for milking the reality craze for horror prospects. It’s become so dominant lately on tv that I’m surprised we don’t have more entries into this subgenre.

What we have here is a new show set in a prison where, according to local legend, the warden went crazy and killed dozens of inmates in an attempt to purify the world. Not a bad start, but then we meet the cast and it’s off to stereotype-ville. (Each member is representing their own cliché, and while yea, that’s the point to show how stiff reality tv is, it doesn’t give “The Task” an excuse to fall into that same trap while trying to satirize it.) The show makes each member go off by themselves on some spooky task, thereby separating them from the herd and making themselves easy pickings. It’s better than slipping off to get more beer, but not by much.

The reality tv gone awry field usually falls into one of three categories. The most common is that someone crazy has broken onto the set of a Big Brother type show and begins offing the contestants. The next is that the show itself is run by psychos out to end the contestants. The third is that the set that the show is being filmed on is somehow haunted. Not exactly a rich tapestry to choose from, but there’s potential out there. The problem with “The Task” is that it doesn’t make any decisions, it just picks from all three and mixes and matches for its duration. Sometimes it’s a ghost story, sometimes a revenge flick, and sometimes it’s just padded out.

The film, though, is beautifully shot. It’s odd to say that after a movie that really doesn’t do much, but the look of THE TASK is way above par, and the acting almost saves the movie. Yea, the characters are cliché (even more than I said before) but the cast really works to try and pull this one out. It’s just not quite there. And that leaves “The Task” a little frustrating to watch. You can see a lot of talent on the screen, and you want it to work, it just doesn’t. And that’s too bad, because like a Christmas gift that you just don’t want, it’s hard to fault them trying to be nice.

“The Task” tries to deliver. Its heart is in the right place, but that’s just not enough sometimes.